“Cinéma Vérité was started in 2008 by Anglo-Torontonian Zachary Gray and Franco-Montréaler Guillaume Harvey. Having met in the back row of Concordia University film classes, Gray and Harvey began a long-distance song-writing relationship after Gray moved to Toronto to major in film at Ryerson University. Gray recently moved back to Montréal, but the two continue to compose the majority of their music online.
Signed to Le Grand Magistery in 2010 (best known as Stars’ former label), Cinéma Vérité will be releasing their debut album “Sunrise, Sunset” October 20th, along with a self-released remix album, “Sunrise, Sunset Revisited”, featuring remixes from Benoît Pioulard, Khonnor, Le Concorde, Montag, and Ilkae, among others. (MP3: Le Concorde’s “Oak Island” Remix:http://thisiscinemaverite.com/press/cinemaverite-192-oakisland-leconcorderemix.mp3) With their background in film studies, Cinéma Vérité creates music that is as much atmospheric soundscape as it is catchy-as-hell pop. “Sunrise, Sunset” is a bittersweet gut-ache of heartbreak hangovers and morning-after melodic bliss. It is both moody as hell, and simply sincere. Gray’s lyrics are crystalline and pure, like the memories that play over and over in your head when you’re homesick, like rousing up from a drunk-dry sleep to sober-ecstatic revelation. Harvey’s guitar riffs, spinning out and rolling in, soaked in home-style acoustic pop, are hung out to dry in electronic ephemera. You walk with it and it takes you home. “Sunrise, Sunset” also features two remixes of the forthcoming single ‘Perfect Day’ by Canadian electo acts vitaminsforyou and Montag. In addition to the album, Cinéma Vérité released their debut single “Icelandic Summer” this past June via Le Grand Magistery’s digital compilation “A Very Magistery Summer”. (MP3: “Icelandic Summer” http://thisiscinemaverite.com/press/cinemaverite-192-icelandicsummer.mp3)
Cinéma Vérité tours with a 5-piece live band, with Gray on harmonium, laptop, and vocals, and Harvey on guitar. The band rounds out with Toronto musicians Christopher John Butcher on drums, Anu Jindal on guitar, and Tristan Johnston on bass. They’ll be touring North America this October and November with Kranky recording artist Benoît Pioulard. Tour dates will be announced soon” (Hoja de prensa)

Bobb Bruno: Smith Westerns: “Tonight” and Those Darlins: “Wild One” are probably my two favorites of the last year.

Favorite Older Songs at the Moment

BC: I started listening to E.L.O. a lot on the European tour, and “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” is one of my favorite songs ever. And another is James & Bobby Purify: “I’m Your Puppet”, which is a song that Bobb and I listen to a lot when we’re touring and driving.

BB: Fleetwood Mac: “Sara” from Tusk. I listen to that song probably every day, at least once. Some days more than once [laughs ]. And “You Make Loving Fun” from Rumours. I’ve been really obsessed with those. Favorite New Artist BC: Two of my favorite new bands we’ve actually been lucky enough to play with. No Joy are these two girls from Montreal who are just the most bad-ass slayers on guitar. They’re super awesome, and they just had a 7″ come out on Mexican Summer. And the other band is Dunes, from L.A., who also just had a record come out on Mexican Summer. Dunes are close friends of ours.

BB: I like both those bands a lot. Those Darlins, I don’t know how new they are, but they’re new-ish to me. I’m super into that band.

BC: I knew you were gonna say that [laughs].

BB: They’re gonna come up, probably a few more times [laughs].

My Dream Collaboration

BC: I would really like to collaborate with Drake! I’m obsessed with Drake, I think he’s, like, one of the best artists to come out within the last 10 years. His record is so good, and all his mixtapes are really good too. [Drake] would be awesome, but I’m also obsessed with Stevie Nicks, so I think, ultimately, my number one collaboration would be to do something with Stevie Nicks.

BB: Probably Little Boots. I think her music’s really cool. Or Lindsey Buckingham is probably the ultimate. The other side of Bethany’s dream.

BC: Boys versus girls. [laughs]

Favorite Song of All Time

BC: My favorite song of all time is “Don’t Worry Baby” by the Beach Boys. It’s a pretty generic Beach Boys song, and a pretty generic favorite song to have, but it’s just incredible. When we were in Europe, I listened to it probably 50 times a day ‘cause it would just push me through the anxiety and the homesickness and stuff. I just think that’s the best song ever.

BB: Probably “No Reply” by the Beatles. No matter how I’m feeling, if I put that song on it just feels instantly better. It just kicks in right away, on the first word. So good.

Last Great Concert I Saw

BC: When we were in London, we went to see Teenage Fanclub. They played down the street from us. I was super drunk, so I didn’t really watch them, but I heard them the whole time and it was really awesome. I don’t remember what the venue was called, but it was old-timey looking and really cool.

BB: Wilco at Primavera. Wilco’s my all-time favorite band, so any time I see them is incredible, even though they had a lot of technical difficulties at that show. They could have a show where every song goes wrong, and it would still be my favorite.

BC: I also watched Beach House at Primavera and that was amazing as well. Teen Dream is one of the best records ever. I watched them with Matt Mondanile from Real Estate, and we were standing on this hill with thousands of people everywhere. He and I were looking at each other like, “This is nuts, right?” They sounded amazing, and it was a really cool experience.

Last Great Film I Saw

BC: The last great movie I saw was Toy Story 3 in 3D. We saw it at this theater in L.A. called the El Capitan, which is owned by Disney, so they have all of the big Disney movies playing there. There was a Toy Story-themed carnival that you could go to across the street, and if you had a ticket to the movie, you got to go into the carnival for free. I felt like I was 10 years old again, and I love to feel like I’m a kid. So it was almost as good as Disneyland.

BB: I watched this French movie called Martyrs. Essentially it’s a horror movie, but there are a lot of twists and turns.

Last Great Book I Read

BC: I’m obsessed with Chelsea Handler, I think she’s hilarious, and I read her last book on our last U.S. tour, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang. She’s really funny and relatable, and the other one she did, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, it’s really good, but I think Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang is better.

BB: Storms by Carol Ann Harris– that was the Fleetwood Mac book I read on tour. She was Lindsey Buckingham’s girlfriend, and they started dating right before Rumours came out, and then she was with him, I think, past Tusk and onto the next record. If you like Fleetwood Mac, it’s an amazing book because you get to read about all the insane decadence and then everybody’s weird personality things.

BC: Coke stories?

BB: Yeah, a lot of cocaine stories. Stevie Nicks’ dog likes to eat cocaine, that’s one of them. Don’t leave it around her, ‘cause her little poodle will eat it.

Favorite Piece of Musical Equipment

BC: My dad gave me an original Danelectro. It was his guitar, and he gave it to me when I was 16 or 17. He bought me a Strat as a Christmas gift when I was 13, so that was my first guitar, but the Danelectro is the guitar that I wrote most of the Best Coast songs on and the guitar that I used when we first started playing. But I think [the Danelectro] is my favorite piece of musical equipment, because my dad gave it to me and it got to go on a tour and do cool stuff.

BB: The Zoom HD16 recorder is really easy to use and really small, and that’s what we did all the early Best Coast singles on. I still use it to record pretty much everything, or when I’m working on new songs and stuff. Even though it’s digital, the way it’s laid out is really easy. You pretty much don’t have to read the manual, which is good.

Favorite Record Shop

BC: My favorite record store is Rooky Ricardo’s in San Francisco. We went there when we were on a West Coast tour with Vivian Girls, and I had heard everybody telling me, “This would be your favorite record store, you have to go there.” We went there and it was actually closed! The Yours Truly guys were filming us and they knew they owner so he opened it up for us, basically. And it was like my dream. They had every girl group ever, and just every kind of 50s and 60s thing you can imagine. The guy who owns it makes these really awesome comps, where he just picks his favorites from surf to girl group to more a cappella shit, and they’re like 10 bucks each, and you get 30 or 35 songs on a CD ‘cause the songs are all pretty short. So that’s definitely my favorite record store. I want to go there every time we’re in San Francisco.

BB: Aquarius Records, also in San Francisco. I feel like their tastes are totally, exactly in line with mine. They like weird soundtracks, black metal, and then also really cool, weird pop records. Any genre of music that I have an interest in, they always seem to know what’s the best, coolest, newest, or most obscure things– they’re always on top of it.

First Record I Bought For Myself

BC: The first actual thing I remember buying and listening to and having sort of shape the music that I listened to as a young teenager was the first Punk-O-Rama compilation. I grew up in the suburbs, and my friends and I were all sort of quote-unquote “alternative kids”, while everybody else was into surfing and water polo. [laughs] The first Punk-O-Rama had, like, Pennywise and NOFX and Rancid and Total Chaos and a bunch of really funny pop punk bands. And every time they would make a new one, my friends and I would go and we would buy it from this record store called Tempo, which doesn’t exist anymore. Once it got to Punk-O-Rama 5, we sort of grew out of it.

BB: Wow, yours is way cooler than mine.

BC: [laughs] Well, you’re old!

BB: There were records that I had my parents buy for me, but the first one that I actually decided, “I’m going to buy this,” was the “Footloose” single. I was really into pro wrestling, and there was this tag team called “The Fabulous Ones,” and that was their entrance music. In hindsight, not the best choice– they were a tag team with their whole look patterned after Chippendales dancers. But when you’re 11, they’re just cool dudes with beards that are beating people up. Now that I’m older, I look back and it’s like, “Whoa.”

BB: Well, being into punk rock is a lot better than an 11 year old who’s into sweaty Chippendales dancers.

Favorite City to Play In

BC: I love playing in Toronto. We have played in Toronto a couple of times, and I always have a lot of fun. I love playing in Toronto, and I love playing in L.A. ‘cause it’s home and, you know, it’s always good vibes when we play here.

BB: Toronto and L.A. are also my favorites. We played in Toronto three times a couple weekends ago, and every show was really fun and different and–

BC: –sweaty.

BB: Yeah, really sweaty. But the people in that city who come to our shows are super awesome and really nice to us.

Favorite Venue

BC: I think my favorite venue is this place in L.A. called Echo Curio. It’s a small DIY sort of art gallery space, and we’ve played a bunch of shows there.

BB: Our first show!

BC: Yeah, we played our first show there. I always like going to shows there. They don’t have a professional sound guy or sound system, so it’s not always the greatest sound, but it’s always really fun to hang out there and drink beer on the street with your friends. They always have really awesome bands play there, too. There’s also a place in Toronto that we’ve played twice now called the Garrison. It’s becoming one of my favorite venues. The people that work there are really cool, and we have good memories of that place. Bobb got his hair braided there once.

BB: The Garrison is awesome. I really like Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. It’s a really beautiful venue, and the people who work there are really nice. The sound is really good, too. And then, at home, I still really like the Smell. The L.A. music scene wouldn’t be at all what it is without that place.

BC: I agree with that.

Best Thing You’ve Bought in the Past Year

BC: I recently bought an oil painting of Kramer– from “Seinfeld”– for my house. I got it on eBay. It looks like Al Pacino and Kramer combined, and that’s why I bought it, because it was so bad looking that I was like, “I have to get this.” I really need to get a frame for it and hang it behind my couch.

BB: The Danelectro baritone guitar that I bought this year. I just bought it as a cheap replacement but actually, it’s probably the best baritone that I own. And I own, I don’t know, like five of ‘em. It’s just really light and easy to play. I also bought a spring reverb called “The Moisturizer”, which is made by this guy in Baltimore. It’s really cool ‘cause the springs are on top of it, so you can fuck with ‘em with your hand and do all kinds of weird shit. But as a regular reverb it sounds amazing.

BC: What about your Jäger backpack?

BB: That is pretty good too. I just look like the biggest bro everywhere. In every airport that we go to, to bring a Jäger backpack.

BC: It’s black and orange and has the Jäger logo on it! And it’s like, a mini-backpack. It’s amazing.

BC: Primavera Sound 2010. Primavera was one of the craziest, coolest moments that I’ve ever experienced. I was super nervous before we played, and then while we were playing I kind of had that moment where I realized, “Wow. This is actually happening,” y’know? Being able to go to Europe at all was awesome. I never thought I’d go to Europe, and Barcelona is a beautiful place. I had so much fun at Primavera. It was the moment that I realized, “Okay, this is real. I’m actually in a band. This is my job now.”

BB: Making our record was definitely the best thing. We had to do it really fast, and at the beginning it seemed like, “Are we even gonna be able to do this?” We put our heads down and just worked super hard to get it done in the shortest amount of time possible. And we actually pulled it off, and it came out great, and I’m really proud of it.

My Dream Merch Table

BC: Best Coast bongs. No question. That’s what we’re selling [laughs]. A bong shaped like a cat.

BB: I want stuffed animals of Snacks [the cat on the album cover] that people can buy.

BC: Yeah. We can do that. We can do both [laughs].

Strangest Display of Affection from a Fan

BC: Oh my god, where do we start? I think the craziest thing was in Chicago. This kid made fan art– wasn’t really as strange as it was hilarious because the picture that he drew of Bobb looked identical to Bobb. Like, it was a portrait of Bobb, basically. And then the one he drew of me was just a printed out photo of my cat with my name written on it.

But I think the weirdest thing was when we played a show in Stockholm, Sweden, and there was this really drunk guy in the front row that threw a glass of whiskey at me and then came into our backstage and tried to punch us all in the face. Bobb and Keith [Abrahamsson], the guy who runs our label, and [drummer] Ali [Koehler] were all pushing him out of the room, and he wouldn’t leave. And then he was like, “I just wanted to tell you how much I love your band!” And we were like, “Oh, you wanted to punch us in the face while telling us that?” So that guy sucked, and that situation was really bizarre.

BB: That one was definitely the weirdest. At one of our L.A. shows, I traded merch for weed cupcakes. I don’t smoke weed, but Bethany was very into that. I did try some of the frosting.

BC: I ate the shit out of that cupcake.

BB: Before they gave it to us, they added extra frosting, which had even more weed in it. It was just dripping with frosting by the time I took it backstage.

Favorite TV Show

BC: My favorite TV show of all time is “Seinfeld”. But I’ve been watching a lot of “The X-Files” lately, particularly the first and second seasons. I have to watch it during the day ‘cause I get too freaked out to watch it at night. But I think David Duchovny is the hottest guy ever, and that show is really crazy and awesome.

BB: My current favorites right now are “Top Chef”, even though everybody is kind of despicable this season. But I love Tom Colicchio– he’s a hero of mine. I’ll watch that show no matter what. And “True Blood” I’m also really into. This past week’s episode had probably the most insane sex scene I’ve ever seen in my life.

Favorite Video Game

BC: My favorite video game is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater for Nintendo 64. I used to stay up all night playing that game, when I was in junior high. Not to mention it had the best soundtrack ever– Pennywise and Lagwagon and a bunch of weird pop punk bands that I was into. I love Ms. Pac-Man, arcade style, and I’m also really into Skate 2 for Xbox. I am not really good at modern video games, but that’s one game that I am actually pretty good at.

BB: I play Rock Band a lot with my friends. We’ll do marathons. I think our record is 45-song sets, which is like going to a concert.

Favorite Radio Show

BC: There’s a radio station in L.A. called KDAY 93.5, and it’s the old-school hip-hop station. They play a lot of really awesome 90s West Coast hip-hop stuff. And K-EARTH 101, which is the Oldies station, does this thing on Saturday mornings called “Breakfast With the Beatles”, and they play all these rare Beatles songs and interviews.

BB: I’m gonna come off as the biggest loser in this interview, but my favorite radio show is called “Wrestling Observer Live”. It’s on the Internet. They do it a couple of times a week, but they just recap what happened in professional wrestling that week. And also Mixed Martial Arts.

My Ringtone

BC: The ringtone on my phone is just the standard iPhone ringtone, but I never have my phone volume on. I kinda wanna just make my own ringtone and make it a Beyoncé song or something. Maybe I’ll look into that.

BB: Mine is usually vibrate, but I’m gonna make one that’s the “Good day, sir!” from Willy Wonka. That’s gonna be my new ringtone, just Gene Wilder saying, “Good day, sir!”

“There’s a great scene in Twilight: New Moon where Bella sits by her window waiting for her drippy goth-vampire boyfriend Edward. She sits in her chair and waits. Months go by, and the camera slowly pans around her, not moving. Elsewhere in the movie she awakes screaming, so tortured is she to be apart from her beloved. It didn’t take me long to picture Crazy For You – the debut album by west-coaster Bethany Cosentino, formerly of Pocahaunted, now of Best Coast – as a kind of alternative, reverb-drenched soundtrack to the perpetually chaste Twilight series. The sheer quantity of longing on this album positively soaks the speakers, almost every track a paean to forbidden and lost love.
“I wish he was my boyfriend” Cosentino sings on ‘Boyfriend’; this sets the tone – later we hear how “I can’t do anything without you”, “I want you so much”, “I always miss you”. That’s not to say that there isn’t much to commend Crazy For You. The tracks are all snappy slices of girl-group garage pop, admirably well constructed (only one breaks the dreaded three minute mark) and with plenty of sunny doo-wop delay vocals. Yet if there’s to be life beyond one record, Best Coast will have to find something more substantial to go with their well-worked three-chord formula.
Indeed, Cosentino’s perpetually lovelorn persona is so one-dimensionally persistent it makes Bella look like Anna Karenina. As refreshing as it is to hear an indie-rock record fronted by a strong female voice, it’s equally frustrating to find that voice with little to say: the album’s strongest track, ‘When The Sun Don’t Shine’, adds the kind of fuzz and lilting riff needed to lift the music away from the vocals. Of course there’s still time for Cosentino to develop as a songwriter, as well as to remember that Fifties and Sixties girl-pop often had more to say than just ‘I need a boyfriend’ (whether addressing impotence or domestic abuse), often toying with a darker side (as any fan of Mulholland Drive can testify) that Cosentino chooses to gloss over. To paraphrase the title of one of her tracks she’s more “brat” than lovable mope. Her Best Coast is enjoyably light and breezy, but whether you want to share the vista with a brat is another matter” (drownedinsound.com)

“Postcards From A Young Man’ may be their best yet. Or if that seems like heresy (and it even does to me), then let’s say it is right up there with their best. A very different record than, say, ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ or ‘The Holy Bible’, it stands not in contradiction to those cold masterpieces but in concert with them. Defiantly, unapologetically bold and forthright and communicative, it makes the head swim with both the thrill of its tunes and its theories (always a heady Manics mix) and burns with that raging melancholia that has always been unique to them. As James Dean Bradfield says “We’ve always had it. If you look at the lyric to Motorcycle Emptiness, it could be sung in some cold Teutonic way. But we’ve never been that kind of band. We want that sense of uplift somehow. We still feel there’s an eloquence in screaming, that these feelings can make you feel good, they can empower you.” Nicky Wire adds, “Someone once said that most men only ever write two great novels and you end up repeating them. There are two versions of this band maybe. There’s the ‘Journal’ and ‘Bible’ version and then there’s this version. That over the top hysterical dignity, that flash of intelligence. There’s something glorious in celebrating what we really are. Our peers are gone. It’s up to us.”
The Manics still believe in the power of art to transform and liberate, and, devalued and traduced though it is, they still keep faith with their favoured corner of it, the mongrel infant called rock and roll. As passionate and engaged as they are with politics, art, poetry, philosophy, film, sport and literature, they still believe there is something important, privileged, noble even about the mass platform and potency of the rock band, whatever the naysayers and experts think. “It would never occur to me” says James “to comment on the economics of the art world or of publishing, I wouldn’t lecture someone who thatches roofs about their industry. And yet every news programme and business correspondent is always giving his expert opinion on the music business and how it’s finished. It drives you to write. This faint notion that you’re defending the art”
“When you look at most bands” says Nicky “By the time they get to their tenth album, people may still come to the shows but everyone knows that the albums have been rubbish for years. If you’re an ‘artist’ everyone goes to the Royal Festival Hall to see you and thinks it’s marvellous. But no-one listens to your new record. Well, that’s not good enough for us. From the moment we started, we wanted the biggest number of people to hear what we had to say. We want to hear these records on the radio. Everyone is talking about the death of the rock business. I don’t know. But if it is, this is a last shot of mass communication.”
‘Postcards From A Young Man’ was recorded in the Manics own studio in Cardiff with long time producer/collaborator Dave Eringa and mixed in LA with Chris Lord-Alge” (MySpace)

“With $1,600 and a knowledge of the seas that came entirely from “The Annapolis Book of Seamanship” and DVDs, the couple set off for a year of adventure (sharks, reefs, storms, navigating by hand-bearing compass) that would fulfill Riley’s childhood dream. What they couldn’t predict was that being cut off from the United States music scene — limited power on the boat meant that they could only listen to a handful of songs every day — meant they’d come to discover their own sound.
“There were no instruments on the boat — we had to reacquire all the musical equipment we sold to take the trip in the first place,” said Moore, who was home on her day off from her retail job. “One day we were in a bar in the Florida Keys and ‘Baby It’s You’ by the Shirelles came on. We’d never heard it before, but we loved the wall-of-sound thing, and decided right then that we’d try to create that when we got back.”
They started writing the songs, which have a pleasantly angular take on the girl-group sound, at home this past January as a way to process the trip. Their sailing blog, White Satin Gloves — which they quickly typed up while they plugged in their power strip at bars — couldn’t convey their incredible journey. “It was a huge letdown going back to regular life and not being able to express things, like how a shark was feeding next to us while we were eating oatmeal,” said Moore. “Every song reminds us of time, place, people and experiences,” from the beauty of the Carolina waterways to their depressing glimpses of Florida, where “everyone either works in a bar or drinks all day.”
The young couple saved for six years to be able to buy the boat and take the time off. Riley, who just left his job in facilities and installation at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, said the trick was to cut back on bars and restaurants, as well as concerts: “We’re really miserly,” he said with pride. This past year, they’ve been able to save enough to head off again in the fall, but since their music went (indie) viral, they wonder if they’ll be able to tour as offers come in — and there’s still that full-length to record.
But Riley said they need go to go away in order to move ahead. “We need another writing sabbatical,” as he called it. “A lot of our creativity and freshness of perspective came from not being engulfed in music.” However, don’t expect a Sufjan Stevens-like musical catalog of the oceans. “The next trip, we’ll go sailing and be able to reflect back on our life in the States,” said Riley. “It’s a perspective thing.” Listening to the songs on “Marathon,” it’s an idea that holds water” (tmagazine.com)

“The Hundred in the Hands is Eleanore Everdell and Jason Friedman. The two live in Brooklyn and discovered their shared sensibility for early hip hop, French house and disco, ska and dub, post-punk, British invasion-mod and girl pop from the 60’s through the 80’s and decided to form a band. Their first song—the post-punk rave-up “Dressed in Dresden”—was written and recorded in a couple of days, released online, picked up and released as a 45 by a record shop in the U.K. where they were soon playing shows and coming to the attention of Warp Records. Meanwhile, the two retreated to the bunker to write and record. During that time, Friedman and Everdell focused on deciding exactly who they wanted to be. What they discovered and emerged with were 11 startling new tracks and a precise and deliberate sound.
The band’s self-titled debut album is an epic collection of adventurously crafted, perfectly manufactured and deceptively complex pop songs that embrace the duality between the electronic and the organic, between night and day.
Equal parts mutant disco, 80’s pop queen and Yé Yé girl, Eleanore’s epic vocals and lavish synths—both full and flirty, desperate and demanding—belie a naturalism that’s intensified and offset by Jason’s bass lines, programmed beats and guitars that swerve from angular, full-throttle riffs to vaporous and ephemeral shadows. Jason and Eleanore trade menacing metallic, razor sharp, turns, assembling towering melodies atop pulsing rhythms” (rcrdlbl.com)

“I talk with Adam and Brian from The Symbolic Jews who are releasing a new album entitled “Can I trust You“, you can preview the album HERE and also download a bunch of their other albums on their Bandcamp page.

SICK OF THE RADIO- How would you describe your sound??

ADAM: Confession Rock

BRIAN: Chameleon Popck

SICK OF THE RADIO-Your sound seems to have no restriction’s, you have even utilized auto-tune when most people would think that dudes like you guys would despise that sound. Tell us about your new album ‘Can I trust you’ you say its going to be a mix of lil wayne and oxbow???

ADAM:We’ve gone through a lot of band members of the year or years we’ve been together. Each new line-up would produce a completely different sounding band. And rather than try and preserve a certain “sound” I just say fuck it, as long as it’s fun to play. As long as it challenges the listener or audience member, makes em feel awkward or scares them just a little bit. That’s fun.

BRIAN: “Can I Trust You?” is going to be an oversensory assault of unnecessary extrasensory bleeps and blops followed by uncomfortably familiar ground and will continue to fuck with your senses not necessarily in this order.

SICK OF THE RADIO-Any cool bands you like within the San Fran area??

ADAM: The Snails, this crazy guy that plays violin at Civic Center Station. He’s fucking brilliant, even if it turns out he’s not crazy and just ripping off hipsters.

BRIAN: Base of Bass, Planet Booty

SICK OF THE RADIO– What are you guys listening to right now??

ADAM: 13th Floor Elevators’ Bull of the Woods. We’re def covering Livin’ On off that album. Also Fang and Rudimentary Peni. They’ve really grown on me. There’s a hella rudimentary Peni-sounding song on the new record, that’s no accident.

SICK OF THE RADIO-Any cool stories while on tour? I see you guys have and upcoming tour starting this November, and it looks like you are venturing out to places like Texas and New Orleans, is this the farthest from S.F. that you have ever played??

ADAM: I met my girlfriend’s family on our last tour to Southern California. They watched us play songs like “I dissapointed my parents by becoming a drug addict” and still welcomed me with open arms. Thank god! I thought that was gonna be a deal breaker. This next tour we’re shooting for New Orleans. I figure if the reception up north and down south is any indication, we should go over real well. The farthest I’ve ever played is for a church service in Cambodia. The Khmer people rule! They can really jam. I hope our band can play Southeast Asia soon. Over there they know what freedom really means.

BRIAN: Our van broke down on the way to L.A., we stayed the night on a military base and got lost getting out in the morning.. not too much to tell haha, but maybe i’m forgetting things. Texas is the farthest I’ve ever played” (sickoftheradio.com)

“Here’s a FREE download of TIGHTS IN AUGUST, to whet your appetite for the new SHRAG album – “Life! Death! Prizes! – out October 4th 2010.
It’s a summer SMASH, all EDWYN COLLINS and CLARE GROGAN fronting CAMERA OBSCURA… it’ll only be up here until the end of August, so tell your friends, add it to mix tapes, play it in clubs, and pre order the album HERE“ (wiaiwya.com)

“On Tuesday, August 17th we will be hosting a crazy warehouse party in Downtown Los Angeles with some of our favorite up-and-coming artist around including Baths, Teen Daze, Light Pollution, Gobble Gobble, Blackbird Blackbird and Kites Sail High. In an effort to help promote the show, we have curated a free EP of all unreleased tracks by each of the artist playing and the press has already been awesome: Stereogum, RCRD LBL, Yours Truly, Smoke Don’t Smoke and we are happy to announce that both Baths’ “Nordic Laurel” and Teen Daze’s “June 2010″ have made it in Hype Machines top 100 most popular songs right now. Enjoy!” (heartmusicgroup.com)

“The new record is packed with succinct rock songs that pulse and pound with startling precision: it pummels you, you ask for more. Wilderness Heart is arguably Black Mountain’s tightest, most concentrated outing, but there’s still plenty of raw rock energy at work. “It’s our most metal and most folk oriented record so far,” McBean says. “I’m not gonna say it’s our best record or the album that we always dreamt of making ‘cause that’s what everyone says. It’s all about where we were at the time the machines were rolling. You can’t control the electricity or how your limbs were moving that day. You have to erase the visions and just go along for the ride.”
“It’s a Black Mountain pop record, which is to say it’s nothing like pop at all,” Wells says. “This was the fastest record we’ve ever made. We’re used to spending a lot of time deliberating over the songs and spacing out recording sessions over years. Start to finish, this album was made in four months, which is something like a miracle for us. We’ve never worked with producers before and that was a challenge; for us to let go and let two outsiders into the process, D. Sardy and Randall Dunn – it took some growing for us to be truly open, but this album is all the better for it.”
The band cites a slew of disparate influences – New Order, King Crimson, Studio 54, Alex Chilton, sunshine, Janis Joplin, Please Kill Me, Shirley Collins, Mickey Newbury, jalapeno salsa, Night of The Hunter, Cactus Taqueria, Funky16Corners podcasts, Dennis Wilson, the house blowing up in the desert at the end of Zabriskie Point – but, as Schmidt points out, “Who knows how these things connect with the holistic mix of often dissonant forces that become Black Mountain?” (rcrdlbl.com)

“First up was Austin, TX rockers Bloody Knives, who were making their first appearance in New York. Cleverly melding influences as diverse as metal, shoegaze and post-punk, the duo eschews guitars, and instead uses keyboards and samplers to create a lush and at times psychedelic sound. Lead singer Preston Maddox’s ethereal tenor vocals seem to float over his intense, distorted bass lines and the heavy, driving beats of drummer Jake McCown. Though the two have been playing together for years in other bands (most recently the Joy Bus), Bloody Knives has only been a band since late 2009. The newness was not evident, though, as their set was pretty tight. The only glitch was one between-song pause when Maddox’s laptop was slow to respond, leading someone in the audience to joke that he was checking his email, to which he responded, “I guess I should have bought a Mac.” Songs in the set included “I Saw The Ghost That Follows You” and “You Know You Will,” from the recently released debut album, Burn It All Down (Killredrocketrecords, the band’s own label), “Buried,” from their first, self-titled EP, and “Laserz” (sentimentalistmag.com)